‘Agents-in-focus’ and ‘Agents-in-context’: The strong structuration analysis of central government accounting practices and reforms in Nepal

Drawing on Stones’ (2005) strong structuration theory, the paper unfolds why and how the key stakeholders of central government accounting in Nepal are involved in the reproduction of routinised accounting practices, resisting the externally-propagated changes. Government accountants (the agents-in-focus) through their capability to control the budget routines have enjoyed a powerful social position in their position–practice relations with the agents-in-context, i.e. professional accountants and international consultants, higher-level officers and administrators, auditors, and politicians. Social position along with historically-imbued dispositions and their conduct and context analysis have enabled government accountants to strategically exercise their agency. Government accountants have articulated duality and a dialectic relation with the agents-in-context, which have resulted in the reproduction of everyday accounting practice and the resistance to the World Bank-led reforms, such as accrual accounting and, more recently, the Cash-Basis IPSAS.     

地方政府人才引进政策促进了区域创新吗？——来自准自然实验的证据

高技能人力资本对于我国经济转型的重要性不言而喻。本文以2009—2012年间39个城市集中出台的地方人才引进政策为准自然实验,采用多期政策的双重差分法,结合机制分析和异质性分析,探究了人才政策出台前后区域创新能力的变化及其背后的机制和深层次原因,并分析政策效应在不同的地区营商环境、科教事业投入力度、知识产权保护程度下的差异。本文主要结论包括,地方人才引进政策总体上提高了当地的专利授权总量和专利价值总量;显著增加了研发投入的规模,但创新效率没有得到明显提升;在营商环境较差的地区,政策的效应侧重于提高专利数量,营商环境较好的地区则侧重于提升专利价值;在科教投入力度本身就很大的地区,政策效果较小,在科教投入弱的地区效果会更明显;在知识产权保护程度弱的地区,政策效果更多地表现为提高专利数量,保护程度强的地区,则侧重于提升专利价值。上述结论对地方政府优化人才激励政策、实施创新驱动发展战略具有一定的政策启示。     

Anti-corruption,government subsidies,and investment efficiency

The problem of corruption in socio-economic development has long been a focus of academics and practitioners. To address this concern in China, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China instituted a new anti-corruption policy. In this paper, we examine the impact of this recently enacted anti-corruption policy on the investment efficiency of subsidized enterprises from the perspective of government subsidies. We conclude that government subsidies have a significant positive impact on the overinvestment behavior of enterprises and that the anti-corruption work done by the government has effectively restrained the excessive investment behavior of government-subsidized enterprises. Further, we find that the anti-corruption policy is more effective in restricting overinvestment in subsidized state-owned enterprises than in non-state-owned enterprises. We examine the impact of the anti-corruption policy on excessive investment caused by government subsidies and enrich the body of research related to investment efficiency. We also provide empirical support for further research on the anti-corruption policy at the macro-market and micro-enterprise levels. The findings highlight the need to establish new cooperation between government and enterprises, to rationalize the distribution of administrative resources, and to promote the sustained and healthy development of the national economy.     

Short sellers and insider trading profitability: A natural experiment

We examine the impact of short sellers on insider trading profitability using a natural experiment of a pilot program which relaxed short-selling constraints for randomly selected pilot stocks. We find that pilot firms experienced a significant decrease in insider trading profitability during the pilot program. The results are more pronounced for the pilot firms with poor information quality, and for the pilot firms without corporate restrictions on insider trading. Our evidence suggests that short sellers serve an important market disciplinary role by reducing insider trading profitability.     

Intraday data and hedging efficiency in interest spread trading

Three government bond futures contracts and their respective 3-month interest rate futures contracts traded on LIFFE are examined. The data period covers three years of observations, January 1994-December 1996, sampled at half-hourly intervals. Borrowing from the calculation of minimum variance hedge ratios, half-hourly minimum variance spread ratios (the ratio of one contract to another, which provides the minimum variance) are estimated for the above contracts. The hypothesis under examination is whether there is any value-added in estimating minimum spread ratios based on intraday data. Three spread ratios are defined: two ratios calculated from daily data and a third one based on intraday data. Evidence tends to indicate that spread ratios calculated from intraday data exhibit a substantially lower variance than the other two spread ratio speciications. Thus, it is shown that intraday data, in comparison with daily data, allow for lower hedging costs. Moreover, the use of intraday-based spread ratios might be a contributing factor to reducing the maximum cumulative loss potentially incurred while holding a spread position.     

政策不确定性对公司投融资行为的影响研究

本文以2003-2013年中国A股上市公司的财务数据和31个省市自治区地方官员的变动数据为样本,采用地方官员变动率作为地方政策不确定性的代理变量,研究了政策不确定性对企业投融资的影响。研究发现,政策不确定性显著降低企业的债权融资,但是对股权融资影响不显著。政策不确定性对企业投资的影响存在两种渠道,一是通过降低企业融资来影响投资,二是通过企业资本运作降低融资对投资的影响系数,即政策不确定性越高,企业债权和股权融资对投资的正向作用会越小,这种作用机制在国有企业、大企业等与政策联系紧密的企业中作用更为显著。融资可获得性是政策不确定性影响投资的重要前提之一,融资可获得性较小时,政策不确定性显著降低了企业投资;在融资可获得性较大时,政策不确定性影响不显著。加强长期制度建设,降低政策不确定性,对于稳增长具有重要意义。     

基金会计理论与我国政府会计改革

我国传统预算会计的基本目标是为了满足国家宏观经济管理对会计信息的需求,而未来的政府会计既要为政府制定政策、进行绩效评估提供信息,同时更要为纳税人提供有关整个政府财务的信息。因此,未来我国传统的预算会计模式需要借鉴国外经验,向政府会计模式转变。而要建立政府会计模式,必须明确基金会计的改革取向,推动我国政府会计的全面改革。     

Forces Leading to the Adoption of Accrual Accounting by the Canadian Federal Government: An Institutional Perspective*/ LES FORCES AYANT MENÉ L'ADMINISTRATION FÉDÉRALE CANADIENNE À ADOPTER LA COMPTABILITÉ D'EXERCICE: UNE PERSPECTIVE INSTITUTIONNELLE

In 1995, the federal government of Canada announced that it would adopt full accrual accounting. The change was fully implemented at the department level in 2001 and for government‐wide financial reporting in 2003. Using the perspective of institutional theory, we examine several factors that had the potential to influence the federal government's decision to adopt full accrual accounting, including two royal commissions, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, credit markets, and the practices of other national governments. We find that the decision to change to accrual accounting can be largely attributed to coercive and normative influences of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (supported by the normative influence of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants' Public Sector Accounting Board) and mimetic isomorphism with other members of the federal government's organizational field.     

论政府财务信息披露的原则

政府财务信息是从价值的角度对政府业务活动及其结果的一种反映,是连接政府与公众的桥梁。政府财务信息包括政府财务会计手段核算和反映的财务结果信息、反映政府财务计划的政府预算信息等,它主要通过政府预算报告和政府财务报告对外披露。政府财务信息披露必须坚持或遵循及时原则、全面原则、适量原则、真实原则、易用原则和平衡原则。     

地方政府投融资平台研究综述

2008年金融危机以来,我国实施经济刺激计划使地方政府投融资平台数量和规模得到了迅猛的发展。地方政府投融资平台对地方经济发展作出了巨大的贡献,同时也累积了巨大的风险。本文对地方政府投融资平台的国内外相关文献作了梳理和评述,以期对未来相关领域的深入研究有所裨益。